Retailers wish it was Halloween everyday

Money talks: Halloween doing the retail industry the greater good

It is that time of year again where shoppers flee the high street purchasing pumpkins and impressing their friends and family by buying the scariest and spookiest costumes about. Some even create their own fancy dress which makes us all go bump in the night.

I will try and stop with the woeful puns but Halloween every 31st October followed by Bonfire Night on November 5th has been celebrated by millions in the UK and various other countries in Europe for generations. Halloween of course was originated from the United States but having lived in Britain all my life, I know it is a big event here.

Halloween and Bonfire Night comes at a perfect time of year for the public to forget about the depressing political headlines which have dominated the newspapers and Sky News/BBC cannot stop mentioning. The European Union is in a middle of an economic downturn and last week, the likes of British Prime Minister David Cameron, French President Nicolas Sarkozy and German Chancellor Angela Merkel sought a plan to improve the Euro currency and reduce the debts at countries such as Italy and Greece. This news has quietened down in the last couple of days but no doubt the story will escalate even more in the next couple of days with increased revelations and more doom-and-gloom.

It is difficult to forget the current EU crisis, plus the rising unemployment figures doesn't stop the public from carving pumpkins and decorate their houses with dangling bats, covering their rooms with cobwebs and pinning up spiders to the walls. However, do people consider the costs?

With Christmas less than two months away, people such as myself are saving precious pennies to buy our loved ones gifts but what I discovered is the price of Halloween. A report today suggests UK sales during the spooky season is up by 12.5% meaning the British public has spent over £300 million to celebrate the occasion. To me, that is a staggering amount of money but nonetheless, a massive boost for the retailers. In the United States also, retailers enjoy a positive last week of October as they count up large profits. In 2007, one year before the recession hit the US, Americans spent $5 billion. That might sound a lot but the figure was much less than the $17 billion people spent for Valentines Day every February 14th.

Halloween in the 21st Century has been a dark-horse of celebrations. When I was young and being raised in Cardiff, my house never really had any children trick-or-treated, and one must admit, I think I knocked people's doors about four or five Halloweens during my childhood. So why has the success been so drastic over the last decade? It can be argued that Halloween has become more commercialised - films such as the Twilight saga, the Harry Potter series and other vampire/witchcraft/zombie broadcasts have become incredibly popular and are targeting the right audience. In addition, I remember reading an article from The Independent last week where they showed some food companies getting festive such as the Marmite's "Trick or Treat" and Cadbury's "Screme Egg". I have not seen anything like it and UK has made this event the third biggest of the year behind Christmas and Easter although I predict the Easter bunny might be the Halloween ghosts shadow in years to come.

If you want my opinion on Halloween, Bonfire Night and Valentines Day - I think they are all a waste of time. In a sense, I am the Scrooge of these events and especially with assignment deadlines hovering around Guy Fawkes night, I don't have the time to celebrate. Besides, in my view Guy Fawkes was a terrorist and I don't want to celebrate a man who caused disruption and shattered the Houses of Parliament. But that is my thoughts on the matter - however, I am in support of the retailers benefits and when people say the likes of Valentine's Day is "too commercialised", just appreciate it is a temporary welcomed boost to our frail economy.

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